介绍： 完整文本微信公众号【英语PK台】今晚推送

Can We Put a Price Tag on a Life? The Shutdown Forces a New Look


第一部分：

Can we measure the cost of hundreds of thousands of dead?

President Trump and leading business figures are increasingly questioning the wisdom of a prolonged shutdown of the American ec...

介绍： 完整文本微信公众号【英语PK台】今晚推送

Can We Put a Price Tag on a Life? The Shutdown Forces a New Look


第一部分：

Can we measure the cost of hundreds of thousands of dead?

President Trump and leading business figures are increasingly questioning the wisdom of a prolonged shutdown of the American economy — already putting millions out of work — to curb the spread of the coronavirus pandemic.

“Our people want to return to work,” Mr. Trump declared Tuesday on Twitter, adding, “THE CURE CANNOT BE WORSE (by far) THAN THE PROBLEM!”

In essence, he was raising an issue that economists have long grappled with: How can a society assess the trade-off between economic well-being and health?

第二部分

There is a widespread consensus among economists and public health experts that lifting the restrictions would impose huge costs in additional lives lost to the virus — and deliver little lasting benefit to the economy.

Weighing economic costs against human lives will inevitably seem crass. But societies also value things like jobs, food and money to pay the bills — as well as the ability to deal with other needs and prevent unrelated misfortunes.

“Making people poorer has health consequences as well,” said Kip Viscusi, an economist at Vanderbilt University. Jobless people sometimes commit suicide. The poor are likelier to die if they get sick. Mr. Viscusi estimates that across the population, every loss of income of $100 million in the economy causes one additional death.

Government agencies calculate these trade-offs regularly. Now, some economists have decided to stick their necks out and apply this thinking to the coronavirus pandemic. A policy to contain the virus by reducing economic activity would slow the progression of the virus and reduce the death rate, but it would also impose a greater economic cost.

It comes down to what a life is worth. That would amount to $2 million in lost economic activity per life saved.


第三部分：

Cass Sunstein, a legal scholar who worked for the Obama administration, heading the White House office in charge of these valuations, once proposed focusing government policies on saving years of life rather than lives, as is customary in other countries. “A program that saves younger people is better, in this sense, than an otherwise identical program that saves older people,” he wrote.

Covid-19 seems to be much more lethal for older people, whatever their economic worth. But Mr. Trump declared Tuesday that even while those most at risk are safeguarded, the economy could be “raring to go” within three weeks. “Seniors will be watched over protectively & lovingly,” he said on Twitter. “We can do two things together.”

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